Entries not meeting submission requirements as above will not be eligible.

Writers must be individual financial members of the SA Writers Centre.

Manuscripts must be submitted during the four week period. No early or late entries will be accepted.

You can only submit one manuscript (or version of) during the submission period.

During the submission period no individual writers may contact the SA Writers Centre, the Publisher or Hachette Australia to seek information about the progress of their submission.

Manuscripts submitted for consideration in the SAHMP must be:

complete

not a first draft (please edit thoroughly)

fiction, non fiction or young adult fiction (sorry no poetry, children’s books or other are eligible).

Selection of the manuscript will be at the discretion of the Publisher and no discussion shall be entered into by the unsuccessful applicants.

Selection of a manuscript for the SAHMP is not a guarantee of publication.

Hachette reserves the right to consider the selected manuscript for publication within twelve weeks of delivery of a new draft of the manuscript, but gives no guarantee of publication.

The work must not be previously published in any format.

The work must not be under consideration by another publisher.

Writers who are not selected for a mentorship are eligible to resubmit the same work in following years.

All submissions must be submitted electronically.

The form of the mentorship:

The Publisher will work with the selected writer.

The exact form of the mentorship will vary according to the needs of the writer and the manuscript, but will include structural notes provided by the Publisher and telephone or Skype calls as appropriate to a maximum of five phone calls, as well as correspondence by email.

The mentorship will conclude either when the writer feels that they do not need further assistance or the Publisher feels that they are unable to be of further assistance, with either party to be advised in writing of the end of the mentorship.

The Publisher will not be available to give advice to the selected writer after the conclusion of the mentorship, unless so agreed between the Publisher and the writer.

The Publisher will not discuss the content of the mentorship with anyone other than the selected writer.

About Sophie:Sophie Hamley has worked in the print and online publishing industries as a bookseller, editor, writer, content producer, web and interactive TV producer. She was a literary agent from 2006 until late 2014, during which time she was President of the Australian Literary Agents’ Association and a member of the Book Industry Collaborative Council. She now works as a publisher with her wonderful colleagues at Hachette Australia.

After the success of last year’s Adelaide Pitch Conference – where out of the 43 attendees, 27 people were asked by major Australian publishers to submit their manuscript (most to more than one publisher) – we will be running it again towards the end of 2016.But don’t leave it until the last minute – begin your preparation now! Below you will find workshops that will help you perfect your manuscript so it can be at its best when the time comes.If you would like to be notified of details when released, please sign up here: Pitch Conference. [EVENT_ESPRESSO_CATEGORY event_category_id="pitch-conference-prep-1459914048"]

Mentorship Application Form

You will also need to identify at least one (maximum of three) goals for your mentorship and agree to the full terms and conditions.

Process

SA Writers Centre will connect you with a mentor with four weeks of application. Mentorship fees must be paid in advance in full to the Centre.

What to expect

Mentorship hours are billed for actual time spent, in 15 minute (minimum) increments. This includes all contact with the mentee including phone/Skype/IM conversations, emails, reading and feedback time and face to face meetings.Note this means that if you send four emails to your mentor, that will equate to one hour of mentorship time.The mentor and mentee will develop a shared timetable and plan, including identified goals, and will keep a weekly record that tracks progress towards goals and time spent by the mentor.Any questions or difficulties will be resolved by the SA Writers Centre.

Rates

Mentorships are offered in five hour blocks.5 hours $55010 hours $88020 hours $1650You can add additional blocks upon completion of initial blocks if you and your mentor agree that this would be beneficial for your work.[gravityform id="15" title="true" description="true"]

The Big Issue Project

For the first time, SA Writers Centre have teamed up with the Big Issue in a community literary project that will benefit Big Issue vendors by presenting a series of creative writing workshops.

The workshops are led by SA Writers Centre’s Writing Development Manager, David Chapple, who joined the Centre in October, 2013.

David not only works with people in the broader community to make professional development and ongoing learning accessible to all writers but he utilises his unique teaching method to help bring out the best writing in people from all walks of life.

The project came about after David met with Big Issue staff and talked about how he was looking to support new literary voices through a project called ‘From the Margins.’

It’s now in its fourth week, with six weeks of workshops remaining in the project, followed by a couple of weeks of editing, designing and submitting. At the end of August, there will be an exhibition of works at the City Library.

The project gives a voice to people who don’t normally contribute to contemporary literature. Many people who experience homelessness also experience mental health issues, unstable family backgrounds and substance abuse. Commonly, in the homeless population, people may have had a very poor experience of school and formal education and thus have low literacy. Often they are brilliant storytellers and with support they can achieve really dynamic writing, which needs to be shared with the broader community.

The best part about the project is that every participant will be developed, even if that manifests as just a little more confidence or a wider social network. SA Writers Centre role is to ensure there has to be movement for everyone and for some we hope to support them to write publishable work.

Projects like this, no matter how infantile the project is, contributes to a more confident, motivated and literary community. SA Writers Centre gets to arm themselves with some new, challenging writers that may be future literature professionals.

‘Just a couple of weeks into the project and already the participants’ progress is highly visible and tangible. Retention is outstanding. They have been told to only come once a week but they totally ignore that and come all the time. And they are always early!

It’s a fascinating project because all of the participants standout in some way, particularly with their undiscovered and yet untold stories. Stories that staff, other vendors or even their friends didn’t know. Some mind blowing experiences and ideas,’ said Chapple.

This project is in partnership with Adelaide City Council, City Library and Big Issue.